Although he’s always known he was adopted, Jude gets a surprise at age 27 when he’s contacted by the man who married his teenage mother not long before she gave her baby away. Jude never wanted to know about his birth mother, Soledad, but he’s drawn in to Oscar’s stories despite himself. Oscar claims Soledad was forced to give up Jude because of her prominent family’s reputation, and she died in an accident after moving to Paris with Oscar. Jude, however, suspects that Oscar is hiding something, and he heads to Paris on a quest for information about Soledad’s death and for something missing inside himself. In this gritty, anti-fairy tale, Jude fi nds himself in the ghettos of Paris, encountering thieves, drug dealers and prostitutes, searching for both his stolen property and answers. It takes a madam turned fairy godmother and briefl y becoming a soldier for a king of criminals for him to learn the truth about his mother’s death and recover what he has lost, allowing Jude to fi nally put to rest the past he never thought to explore.

Tomás K. L. Martín was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and grew up in the New York City area. The College of the Holy Cross alumnus earned graduate degrees from Middlebury College, the University of Paris, and Yale University. Martín’s writing refl ects the years he spent living in France. He and his wife, Paula, live in Harlem with four rescued cats and a beagle.